john4

Discussions among computer geeks concerning secure data destruction all agree that "WinHex" is the right utility for checking to see whether what you just wiped, was really rendered unrecoverable. After PurgeIE and Ccleaner both failed with their 3-pass wipes to securely delete a movie file I had placed in recyle bin, I then used the "file shredder" in Acronis, told it to wipe recycle bin only once. After the file disappeared, I ran WinHex to check all free space and it could not find that movie anymore, and Recuva also couldn't find it. However, I noticed my computer slowing down a bit while Acronis was wiping this file. The wiping action of Ccleaner never slowed my computer one bit. While Acronis's wiping action was accompanied by audible hard drive noises (the "chattering" you typically hear when it is under heavy use), nothing of the sort happened with Ccleaner. I conclude that Ccleaner's claim to "wipe" files into unrecoverable state is false advertising. I'm waiting for the day when somebody who paid a fee to download a similar utility sues the company because private data he thought with good reason had been previously wiped, showed up and was made public to his embarrassment or financial loss. Maybe there was a caveat in the license agreement that says not all copies of the file one wishes to delete, will be purged by the wiping action?

I used Ccleaner's free space wipe utility, and I have to wonder how Piriform can avoid the charge of false advertising. I set CCleaner to wipe the free space at 7 passes, took 2 days to complete. But Recova was able to not only "find", but "restore" many files...some of them having been deleted more than 3 months and two destructive OS format-and-reinstalls previous! Somebody else discovered the same problem of failure to securely delete, and started a long discussion over at http://www.wilderssecurity.com/archive/index.php/t-206024.html. When you load up that page, hit control-f and search for "one big file". Those who know what they are talking about simply throw their hands in the air concerning Windows. If you don't encrypt the entire drive or physicaly destroy it, data you think you have securely wiped will still remain. An academic paper says many claims of secure software deletion by software manufacturers are bogus. See "Secure Deletion Myths" at "http://www.filesystems.org/docs/secdel/secdel.html The academics appear to agree that there are only three possible ways to ensure data security in Windows: 1) encrypt the entire hard drive (PGP or Truecrypt), or 2) use a virtual drive (i.e., so that any changes you make or data you add will disappear when you turn the virtual disc off, or 3) physical destruction of the disc. Acronis has the virtual disc ability with its "Try and Decide" feature. When it is on, you can make changes by installing programs or copying files from other media to your computer, but when you turn it off, all these changes disappear and the computer reverts back to exactly the state it was in before you turned on virtual disc. Nobody likes a conspiricy theory, but then again, it would behoove the government, concerning its objective to crack down on child porn and other illegal computer use, to ask manufacturers of "window washing" utilities to bypass certain windows files during cleaning, or to not actually wipe the free space, so that if law-enforcement can execute a search warrant on a suspect who has installed these programs to destroy evidence of his/her unlawful deeds, the chances will be increased that some incriminating data will remain. Ccleaner is not the only culprit. PurgeIE also claims to securely wipe data from the "recycle bin", yet after doing so, I was still able to recover it with Recova.

I run Vista home edition. I placed a 700 mb avi movie in recycle bin, then opened CCleaner, told it to wipe 3 times (from "advanced file deletion"), and ran it. When deletion was complete, I ran Recuva, and was able to restore to the entire movie back to the desktop in less than 40 seconds. How could a movie sitting in Recycle Bin and subsequently overwritten with 3 passes, be so easily undeleted? This was the only copy of the movie on my computer, and I placed a check mark in all boxes to the left of the CCleaner window to make sure every possible storage spot would be cleaned. The only reason I used CCleaner was because I also previously tried to delete this movie from the recyle bin by using PurgeIE, after telling it to overwrite the data 3 times. After it disappeared from Recycle Bin, Recuva was also able to restore the movie back to the desktop in less than 40 seconds. In other words, two unrelated programs that claim to securely wipe data, apparently aren't doing anything of the sort. I read a report a couple of years ago that said some companies that make wiping and deletion software were in cahoots with the government to exaggerate their product, in the hopes that those who download illegal files files would be suckered into relying on the claim of secure file deletion, so as to help insure that some incriminating data will be leftover and survive for law-enforcement to recover, in spite of the suspect having activated the product's secure file deletion capability. The article said that the probability of law-abiding consumers discovering this fault was low and even if discovered, most of us are likely to wave it aside without seeking further action, and move on to a different product, especially when the product with the fault was free. Any help would be appreciated.